Audrey Wright is a multifaceted artist across solo, chamber music, and orchestral realms. She joined the New York Philharmonic in 2022 and has been the concertmaster of the Baltimore Chamber Orchestra since 2018. She previously served as associate concertmaster of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Wright has performed across the globe in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Boston Symphony Hall, London’s Royal Albert Hall, Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, and the Vatican, and has been a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Chamber Orchestra, New World Symphony, and Cape Symphony Orchestra. With a passion for innovative programming and juxtaposing a wide range of musical styles, her repertoire spans the early 17th century to the modern day, and her performing experience includes the full spectrum of these musical styles, from period performance practice to the premiering of new and personally commissioned works. Her debut album, Things In Pairs, with pianist Yundu Wang, was released on Navona Records in 2022.
Originally from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Wright developed a love of ensemble and collaborative playing from a young age. During her high school years, she went on several international tours with youth orchestras in the Boston area, attended the prestigious Walnut Hill School of Performing Arts, and was on the national radio program From the Top. As a recurring participant in the Verbier Festival since 2012, she has performed with the Verbier Festival Orchestra and Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, and has been concertmaster under the direction of Gábor Takács-Nagy, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kent Nagano, Iván Fischer, and Charles Dutoit. Wright was a Violin Fellow in the New World Symphony from 2013–14, and a member of the Excelsa Quartet from 2014–16. As the Fellowship String Quartet at the University of Maryland, Excelsa Quartet performed and competed internationally, working closely with members of the Guarneri, Emerson, St. Lawrence, and Juilliard quartets.
Wright has performed on such chamber music series as Meeting House Chamber Music, Jackson Hole Chamber Music, Manchester Summer Chamber Music, Great Lakes Summer Chamber Music Festival, and in many concerts in the mid-Atlantic area, including Chiarina Chamber Players, Community Concerts at Second, Pro Musica Rara, Hood College Chamber Music, and the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society, where she has performed on a number of the exquisite instruments in the Smithsonian Instrument Collection. She has worked closely with musicians Mayron Tsong, Paul Watkins, Roberto González-Monjas, Russell Hartenberger, Roger Tapping, John Heiss, John Gibbons, and Yundu Wang, as well as chamber ensembles such as the Axelrod String Quartet, Borromeo String Quartet, Boston Trio, and NuDeco Ensemble. Having worked extensively with artists across other disciplines, she also regularly collaborates with multidisciplinary artist and husband Geoff Robertson on innovative projects that often incorporate dazzling displays of light and sound.
In addition to performing, Wright is a passionate teacher and chamber music coach, and has developed a specialty in coaching and giving masterclasses on orchestral audition excerpts. In 2020 she released a YouTube series of excerpt tutorial videos that has become a widely used resource for musicians worldwide. She was the Director of the Homewood Chamber Music Seminar at Johns Hopkins University from 2017–18, has coached chamber music at the University of Maryland, and maintains a small studio of private students.
Wright holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the New England Conservatory of Music and a doctoral degree from the University of Maryland. Her primary teachers have included David Salness, Lucy Chapman, Bayla Keyes, and Magdalena Richter. She plays on a 1753 J.B. Guadagnini violin generously on loan from the Alsop Trust.